COOPERATION FOR IMPROVED REFUGEE INTEGRATION, VOLUME 2
Training course "CIRI Vol2 – Cooperation for Improved of Refugee Integration, Vol2" was implemented from 6th until 13th of October 2022 in Ioannina, Greece. 47 social workers, youth workers, educators, and volunteers participated in the training course in order to exchange professional experiences, improve their competences, discover educational tools and develop a book which is both a guide and a non-formal education activity toolbox for people working in the field of asylum seeker, refugee and displaced people integration.
This second edition of CIRI training course projects concentrated on continuous cooperation of some of the original partners of the first CIRI edition, with involvement of new organisation working in the field, with larger amount of involved participants and professionals, and with a greater produced outcomes. Overall, the project aimed to improve the quality of asylum seeker and refugee integration process across affected communities in many countries, by improving and multiplying specific competences of youth workers, social workers and volunteers, and by giving space for best practice exchange and innovation.
The objectives of this project were:
To increase the quality of refugee (especially young refugee) integration on international level;
* To promote young refugee social inclusion and acceptance in their new communities, as well as empower them and provide better access to opportunities;
* To significantly improve relevant competences (especially on humanitarian work ethics and principles, safety and protection, protection from sexual abuse and exploitation, protection of minors, inclusive work approaches, use of non-formal education and reflection, ect.) to 47 youth workers, volunteers and other professionals socially working with young refugees, and to enable them as multiplyers;
* To promote cooperation and experience exchange between 14 organizations and 47 people working in the field (participants) from 14 countries that work with young refugees;
* To produce and promote a booklet that can serve as a policy suggestion, a supportive guide and a toolbox for youth workers (and other professionals) engaged with young refugees;
* To promote the use of Erasmus+ program as a tool to raise the quality in youth/social work and integration of young refugees.
During the training course, participants joined various non-formal educational activities, such as team building and local neighborhood cultural heritage discovery activities, World Cafe activity about sharing their local realities related to the topic, got to know EDIC resources that could be useful in their work, learned and discussed humanitarian principles, safety, security and protection policies, child protection and PSEA (protection from sexual exploitation and abuse) policies, discussions and sharing about empathy and sociological imagination, workshops about diversity, family and society interventions, health, and cultural heritage and expression, theater activity "Theater of Oppressed", watching and discussing of short videos and a movie, NGO fair, workshop on the individual-professional future goals of participants, sharing ideas and tools for the book to be produced, best practice sharing by international organisations working in field (IOM and INTERSOS), and other activities that promoted exchange and networking.
Partner organisations supporting CIRI Vol2 project are: YC Epirus (Greece), Youth Innovation Forum Society (Jordan), Have a Dream (Egypt), In Motion (Armenia), Together for Success (North Macedonia), MilleniuM (Republic of Moldova), Idee in Movimento (Italy), UNIT (Ukraine), Internationale Arbeidsverenig (The Netherlands), Scout Society (Romania), uMunthu (Lithuania), Aydin Adnan Menderes University (Turkiye), Eurasia NET (France), and Taller d'Art, Cultura i Creació (Spain).
As a valuable product of this project, a booklet about quality of youth work with asylum seekers, refugees, and displaced people was created, and you can find it in the resource page of this website.
